Your Guide to Diving Solomon Islands Including Uepi and Gizo
All of Undercurrent's information on diving Solomon Islands, including articles, reader reports, Chapbook sections, ...
Diving Solomon Islands Overview
Accessed via Nadi (pronounced Nandi) in Fiji, the Solomons may be difficult to get to, but divers who opt for the liveaboard experience are well rewarded with excellent and varied diving including war wreck and coral reefs. Malaria is endemic and around a third of the population of the capital, Honiara, suffer, so take all precautions. Guadalcanal was the scene of fierce fighting during WW2, and there are still airplane wrecks hanging in the trees where they crashed as well as a few underwater to dive. Two Japanese wrecks near Mbonegi had been unloading supplies onto the beach when they were bombed. Iron Bottom Sound is so named for the number of vessels lost there in battle, but it's too deep to dive. Gizo has the wreck of the Toa Maru.
Solomon Islands Seasonal Dive Planner
The Solomons are hot and humid year-round, with the most rain falling between December and March. Annual rainfalls are well above 100 inches (2.5m), but mountainous islands do produce rain shadows resulting in much less rainfall on some coasts. Between December and April winds blow periodically out of the west (calm spells are broken by storms). The southeast trades blow from the end of April to November. The better months to travel are probably July through September when the rainfall (and therefore malarial mosquitoes), heat, and humidity are lowest, or in November when there's a good chance the seas are flatter.
Featured Links from Our Sponsors
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Reef & Rainforest is an agency for travelers that scuba dive.
Consider us THE experts for planning your diving vacation to Solomon
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Bilikiki Cruises Bilikiki Cruises is a long running, well regarded operator running superb live-aboard diving in
the remote and beautiful Solomon Islands. |
Diving Solomon Islands Reader Reports and Feature Articles
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Latest Reader Reports from Solomon Islands
from the serious divers who read Undercurrent
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All 10,000+
Reports |
MV Solomon Master/Coral Sea Resort Report
in Solomon Islands/Guadalcanal, Florida Islands,
"Solomon Master Redux" filed Oct 3, 2024 by Jeffery Lynn Reeb (Experience: 501-1000 dives, 3 reports, Reviewer )
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I recently spent a week diving the Solomon Islands on the live-aboard Solomon Master and my experience was so positive I felt compelled... ... Read more
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Bilikiki Cruises/n/a Report
in Solomon Islands
"Great trip on the Bilikiki" filed Aug 15, 2024 by Chris Watt (Experience: 501-1000 dives, 16 reports, Contributor )
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This was our first trip on the Bilikiki and first time in the Solomon Islands. This was an 11-day trip = April 14-25, 2024.
We flew... ... Read more
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Bilikiki Cruises Report
in Solomon Islands
"Spectacular Reefs, but Bad Viz." filed Nov 29, 2023 by David Marchese (Experience: Over 1000 dives, 20 reports, Sr. Contributor )
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This was our second 14-day trip on the Bilikiki. Our first time was in 2006, and we were the only two guests onboard for that trip! How... ... Read more
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Uepi Island Resort Report
in Solomon Islands/Uepi Island
"Quiet tropical retreat, Abundant fish and corals" filed Nov 19, 2023 by Christian Andersen (Experience: 251-500 dives, 2 reports)
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Travel to Uepi Island is not especially easy from the US, but our travel was seamless both ways. We flew from Los Angeles through Fiji... ... Read more
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Solomon Master Report
in Solomon Islands
"Great Diving in the Solomon Islands" filed Nov 11, 2023 by Judi Radtke (Experience: Over 1000 dives, 8 reports, Sr. Reviewer )
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10 days aboard the Solomon Master Liveaboard is the perfect fix for fish lovers and adventure/wreck divers. This was a one way trip f... ... Read more
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Complete Articles Available to Undercurrent Online
Members; Some Publicly Available as Indicated
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Diving Solomon Islands Articles - Liveaboards
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MY. Bilikiki Solomon Islands, Southern Pacific , a dive destination that has it all, 10/23 |
Available to the Public |
Island Scuba Destinations That Will be Gone in Less than a Century, 9/19 |
MV Taka, Solomon Islands, and a word about the Bilikiki, 5/18 |
Our Bilikiki Confusion, 1/17 |
Snafu in the Solomons, 9/14 |
M/V Bilikiki, Solomon Islands, fishy reefs and WWII wrecks, 5/12 |
Solomon Sea, 7/95 |
Spirit of Solomons, 10/94 |
M.V.Kirio, Solomon Islands, South Pacific, the Best Of Wrecks And Reefs, 3/92 |
Bilikiki, 3/92 |
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Diving Solomon Islands Articles - Land Based
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Uepi Resort, Solomon Islands, South Pacific, a near-perfect, remote dive resort; and a word about the Bilikiki, 11/24 |
Decaying WWII Wrecks Threaten Coral Reefs, 1/23 |
Available to the Public |
The Loss of a Diving Icon, 9/21 |
Kiribati, Yeah; Kri, Nay, important updates for dive travelers, 5/06 |
Reports From Readers: Part I, Cozumel’s adult dive operators, Bonaire bummers, 8/04 |
Uepi and Gizo, 8/94 |
Uepi, Anuha, Guadalcanal; Solomon Islands, 1942, 1962, And 1987 In The South Pasific, 9/87 |
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Solomon Islands Sections from Our Travelin'
Diver's Chapbooks
Reader Reports filed for
that year |
Editor's Book Picks for Scuba Diving Solomon Islands
Including Uepi and Gizo
The books below are my
favorites about diving in this part of the world All books are
available at a significant discount from Amazon.com; just
follow the links. -- BD
Reef Creature Identification: Tropical Pacific
by Paul Humann and Ned Deloach
Paul Humann and Ned Deloach have done it again, releasing a definitive identification guide to 1600 extraordinary reef creatures of the Tropical Pacific. with this 500+ page softbound guide, you get upwards of 2000 exceptional photos of shrimp and crabs and stars and worms and lobsters and nudibranchs and slugs and squid and bivalves . . . well, all those invertebrates that move along the reefs of this region without fining, so it seems. There are several photos of some creatures to help you identify them during different life stages, and about ten percent of the book is descriptive copy so you can tie down your identification. Even if you have no plans to go to the tropical Pacific, just to thumb through the pages, gawk at the complexity and uniqueness of these animals, and read a thumbnail sketch will give any serious diver vicarious thrills for endless hours.
Click here to buy it at Amazon.
Reef Fish Identification: Tropical Pacific
by Gerald Allen, Rodger Steene, Paul Humann, & Ned Deloach
At last, here's a comprehensive fish ID guide covering the reefs of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The generous 500-page text, displaying 2,500 underwater photographs of 2,000 species, identifies the myriad fishes that inhabit the warm tropical seas between Thailand and Tahiti. The concise text accompanying each species portrait includes the fish's common, scientific and family names, size, description, visually distinctive features, preferred habitat, typical behavior, depth range, and geographical distribution. This is an essential book for every diver traveling westward. 6x9 inches.
Click here to buy it at Amazon.
Dive Sites of the Great Barrier Reef
by Neville Coleman.
With
2900 reefs in 220,000 square miles, the enormous Great Barrier Reef has incredible
dives -- and some very ordinary ones. If you're contemplating a trip, Neville
Coleman's Dive Sites of the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea will help you
ensure you pick the best. This 176 page book, with good maps and scores of colorful
photos, describes the significant sites, the topography and the critters, then
rates and ranks them so you can pick the best. Don't even consider a trip to Australia
without consulting this. $24.95
Indo-Pacific Coral Reef Field Guide
by Gerald R. Allen, Roger Steene.
I was trying to pack
light for a change. Surely the Solomon Sea would have good identification books
aboard. Not so; the only book on the boat belonged to a fellow passenger. It was
one that I had not seen before, the Indo-Pacific Coral Reef Field Guide,
by two of the best fish guys around, Gerry Allen and Roger Steene. The problem
was this fellow passenger kept it in a plastic baggie most of the trip and I had
to beg to see it. Great book, good traveling size, and it covers everything from
fish, shells, marine plants, mammals, corals, and invertebrates to sea birds and
more. Now I've got my own, and it won't do you any good to beg me to borrow it.
This is one of two books that I will not travel to the Pacific without. Good for
travel to the Red Sea, East Africa, Seychelles, Mauritius, Maldives, Andaman Sea,
Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Australia, Micronesia, Polynesia, and Hawaii,
it has 1,800 color illustrations in a 6x8 1/2 paperback format with 378 pages.
$39.95.
There's a Cockroach in My Regulator
by Undercurrent
The Best of Undercurrent: Bizarre and Brilliant True Diving Tales from Thirty Years of Undercurrent.
Shipping now is our brand new, 240-page book filled with the best of the unusual, the entertaining, and the jaw dropping stories Undercurrent has published. They’re true, often unbelievable, and always fascinating. We’re offering it to you now for the special price of just $14.95.
Click here to order.
You might find some other books
of interest in our
Editor's Book Picks
section.
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